:: at least i get to eat the cookies (without holding them on my nose first) ::

like a puppy who has failed obedience school two, three, four times running, i find myself sitting here in a familiar place, facing a familiar situation, yet feeling none the wiser.

it's the whole change versus acceptance thing. it's the whole "i make a decision and then continue to obsess over the question, meaning i really don't like my decision" thing. it's so familiar to me now i actually find it boring. i'm not even interested in writing about it. figuring it out. my inner therapist has asked that i please find another topic or just flat stop coming to therapy.

i decided recently to go with fabric walls for my trade show booth. my reasons are many and varied, but chief among them are two: it is the least expensive option, and it is the least wasteful option.

and really the deciding factor is the money.

and i'm having a hard time accepting that. i really don't want fabric walls. as much as i can sit here and obsessively troll google images and flickr and all of my favorite paper blogs seeking out fabric-walled booths in an attempt to convince myself that hey! they're great! whee! i just keep smacking up against how much i really don't like them. i don't like the fabric. i don't like the limited ways there are for displaying your product. i don't like the options, the executions, the problems, the solutions.

but i simply cannot afford to do what i want to do. it is too expensive. if i am to pay for the booth itself (okay, that's paid already) and the crazy hotel costs for the 5 nights surrounding the event, if i am to cover the cost of getting there and eating there, if i am to be able to send out marketing materials letting people know where to find me, i cannot have the walls i want.

but i cannot accept that. it's killing me.

i wonder if there are dogs in obedience school who know how to sit on command but who just cannot bring themselves to do it. dogs who sit, even, but just at the moment it matters stand up and pee all over the leg of the instructor.

i feel like i'm at one of those points -- like i am sitting here at obedience school knowing that all i need to do is just get over this one hurdle -- just accept the damned fabric walls -- and i will graduate, only instead of just walking up to the hurdle and jumping over it i am searching high and low for a different way to get myself to the other side of the bar.

i know. my metaphor is a bit muddled. it doesn't quite line up. but please, indulge me.

it's just that even though i want to want fabric walls, and even though i want to do the accepting thing and just move on to planning all the other details, i cannot. my husband proposes various options for hanging shelves in front of the fabric and instead of evaluating those options, i obsess instead over the fabric.

i search endlessly for an example of one single booth that has had fabric walls that i just love. so i can accept them.

even as i obsess over this, i realize that it is a silly thing to obsess over. i am embarrassed, even, to tell you about this. i don't want you to know that i am having such a good-versus-evil-scale mental battle over something as minor as this.

the logical, rational part of me knows that there are several really amazing companies that have used fabric walls at the nss and who have gotten lots of press and purchases even despite the walls i find so hideous. in fact i can think of one company that had what i consider a quite ugly fabric booth that just launched a collection at target. (like, the target.) but i just can't get past it.

i ought to be able to reassure myself that it won't matter what my walls are made of because my product will be so stunning. people will flock to my booth because they will want to see my stuff, not my booth.

but i can't seem to swallow this pill either. i can't seem to convince myself of this. perhaps it's a little bit of doubt creeping in? perhaps i somehow think that if i have hard walls and a perfect! splendid! gorgeous! booth it will propel me far beyond the success of my wildest dreams.

it's driving me crazy that i'm sitting here writing about this. i want desperately to attack this first trade show experience with grace and verve. i want to look like an old pro who has no questions, doubts, or turmoil. i want to sit and stay and hold a biscuit on my nose without even flinching or trying to eat it.

at least my husband brought home half moon cookies tonight. those should help.

:: irreverent birthday cards from the sapsucker shop ::

i know i posted a sapsucker shop sneak peek, and then a formal introduction to the line, but you still haven't gotten to see any of the new designs up close. so this week, i'm going to take some time to walk you through the new collection.

in honor of the birthday party we went to last night, i thought i'd start with birthday cards...

 

 

 

i considered revealing who inspired each of these cards, since every single card in the new line was inspired by someone in my life, but i decided that i should probably just keep that info to myself. i'm all about sharing and truth and all, but i'd hate to offend anyone in my life.

plus if i tell you who inspired these then i have to tell you who inspired some of the others, and some things are best left unsaid.

i'll bring you some more sapsucker cards later this week, okay? and then, at the end of the big let's-walk-through-the-new-line, i've got a little giveaway planned. little as in kinda big. like don't buy your holiday cards yet big.

:: this self-employed life: a tragicomedy ::

it occurred to me yesterday that it's possible that this year, up up creative could gross an amount that someone out there probably makes as a salary, not that i envy that person at all because it's certainly not a livable wage. and we won't even talk about how much of that gross total will be or already has been reinvested in the company (read: how much i've already spent and will continue to spend on supplies, tools, advertising, etc.). but yeah. this year my company could gross somewhere in the low five-figure range (whee!).

and then when i was thinking about that yesterday i ended up having myself a good laugh because holy crap i would not work this hard for anyone else offering to pay me so very freaking LITTLE. i'm sorry but if the words "packing and shipping" were uttered, you can believe i'd be passing on the job. or if someone told me i'd be working from 8-11 each night and all day on the weekends? i'd walk on out the door. or that the aforementioned shipping would usually be done while also attending to two small kids? no way.

it's really funny the things we'll do for our own businesses that we wouldn't dream of doing for someone else's, eh?

:: simple and plentiful ::

some say hallmark probably invented valentine's day to sell more cards. well, i know one thing for sure: i didn't invent tax time, but i sure do love getting a refund.



a silly just-because card, now available in the shop.

:: :: water balloons :: ::

water balloons mosaic, originally uploaded by brianjulieandbaby.

inspired by my previous post. : ) you can find the links to each photo by clicking on the mosaic above.

:: :: proud mama :: ::

i give you evan's first freckles. right there on his nose, where the shadowy part starts. see them? i know it's easy to be distracted by those gorgeous blue eyes, but please try to focus. they're so nice and freckly. oh i am a proud mama.

:: :: oh yes i did :: ::

on a scale from "oh my god that's so inappropriate" to "you are a total freaking genius," where do you think using a maxi pad to dry off the slide at the playground falls?

'cuz i'm just curious.

i could have used a diaper but there was a chance we might need that.

:: :: dear cats :: ::

when my sweet son, who is only 21 months old, mind you, decides to do something nice for you, and goes about it in the sweetest 21-month-old manner, play along, eh? when he decides that you deserve a snack (i.e. a cat treat), and he gets two out and pinches each between his thumb and forefinger, so gently, and then comes to find you and pets you so nicely that you don't run away and then tries to put the treat in your mouth, just eat the treat, okay? don't sniff it and then walk away. eat the treat.

seriously.

because he's just going to keep trying. and he's not even chasing you or being loud or doing any of the things you hate. he's trying to give you a friggin' CAT TREAT.

signed,
your owner

:: :: wishes :: ::

i wish that someone had told me that becoming pregnant would forever alter the concentration and composition of hormones coursing through my body. i don't think it would have stopped me, but i would have liked to have known.

i also wish that someone would have told me that my son's adorable chubby baby feet would turn into just plain old regular feet.

wait. no. telling me that would have been just plain mean. i guess maybe there are some things too upsetting for us to know in advance.

:: :: theory :: ::

so, all the snow around these parts? i've figured out where it comes from. the cold air here sucks every last drop of moisture from our bodies and then turns it into snow.

and now that i've written that it seems really gross. huh.

all i know is, i should have bought stock in johnson & johnson's lotion before we moved back.

:: :: bumbo redux :: ::

Giving Turtle a Horsey Ride, originally uploaded by brianjulieandbaby.

it's been a while since the big bumbo recall of 2007 (if you don't know what i'm talking about, you should read this old post), but tonight we got ours out of storage to lend to a friend of my mom's and one thing (singing to evan while changing his diaper) led to another (bumbo-related verses) led to this: our new bumbo song.

(to be sung to the tune of rock-a-bye baby)

bum-bo-bye baby
on the counter top,
when the parents leave,
the bumbo will drop

when the baby falls,
the lawyers will bicker
and all will be settled by
a stupid little sticker.

ta-da!

:: :: for love of earflap hats :: ::

i swore i wasn't going to do it, but i finally did. i joined facebook. (had i known that facebook had really addictive word games, i would have joined years ago.) i decided that living back here at home and building a new business and missing my friends in columbus and all, it was finally time.

it makes me feel like i'm in college again. i would have spent so much time on facebook when i was in college. chatting with my boyfriend. trash talking with friends down the hall. keeping in touch.

i made my profile picture the same one i posted on the blog recently -- the one of evan and me in the snow. i chose this pic for a very specific reason: because of the earflap hat. i realized the other day in traffic that earflaps say a lot about a person.

there i was in my little green civic with my carseat in the center of the backseat and i was wearing my blue earflap hat (because i always wear it) and i looked over next to me and there was a girl in a little gray nissan with a carseat in the center of the backseat and she was wearing an earflap hat too (hers was off-white) and i honestly considered rolling down my window and asking her if we could be friends.

because of her hat.

i know we would be great friends. i just know it.

:: :: bacon bits :: ::

me: "i'm going to go downstairs and work. gotta bring home the bacon."
brian: "you mean the bits?"

it's true. and hilarious. thought you might appreciate it, too.

:: :: silly time waster :: ::

if you need a good chuckle and some surprisingly insightful and sharp cultural commentary, you've got to go check out this link to the playmobil airport security check point toy. read the reviews.

go do it now.

:: :: i know, i know :: ::

i know i shouldn't be, but i'm feeling discouraged about my shop today. sales were steadily increasing daily and then suddenly stopped. i haven't had a sale in days. it's like i've been blacklisted. someone is out there spreading malicious lies about me: her downloadable stationery can give you salmonella; it'll cause rickets; it put that hole in the ozone layer; it peeled the paint off my car.

i'm here to state, for the record, that only one of those things is true. which one? i'll never tell.

:: :: oh, excuse me! :: ::

You are a teacher, all decked out in your teacher outfit — classy but conservative — and you walk eagerly to your classroom on the first day of school, hearing your teacher shoes click click clicking on the speckled green floors. You open the door and walk to your desk, trying not to notice your students sitting there looking up at you even though class hasn’t started yet. You put your teacher bag down on the desk and gather your items from inside: the classlist, a pen, your notes, the books for the class. You glance up at the clock and decide it’s time to start. You glance around the room, and then you fart.

Loudly.

Then how do you start class?

That’s how I feel right now. Like my last post was a big, giant, grown-man-sized fart. And now I don’t know how to proceed.

Hmm.

Anyway, things are OK. Yesterday was OK. Today was bad. My anti-anxiety medicine is making me anxious and I had to go back to my doc today so that he could tell me to try a different one. Tomorrow I see my new shrink. Wish me luck.

:: I So Wish I Had A Picture To Accompany This Post ::

But then again, maybe I don't...

So, my nieces, who are two, have been bred on family pictures. One of their favorite pasttimes when they're at grammy's house is looking at the pictures on the fridge and naming all the people. They've got the same set-up at home and play "pictures" often. Since they live in D.C., away from family (just like us here in Columbus), this is a great way for the girls to learn to recognize their aunts and uncles and cousins.

When they see a picture of Evan, they say, "Ef-in." It's so flippin' cute.

Well, the girls apparently have a book. I think it's like a visual dictionary or something, and it has real photographs. One of the entries is for "people." The picture for that entry is of a naked man and a naked woman (I have no idea what book my sister-in-law is giving her babes, but I trust that it's probably harmless even though it does sound a bit like a 1970 edition of The Joy of Sex).

But here's the good part. Apparently, the naked woman has hair like mine, so when the girls see that naked woman, they say, "Aunt Julie!"

What'll they expect when they see me in person?!

:: Open Letter To KidCo ::

Dear KidCo, Maker of Baby Gates,

I just wanted to say: I've been through lots of gate drama in my (recent) lifetime. There was the Evenflo that was too narrow without the extension and too wide with it. There was the Summer that flew open when my kid's butt hit it and oh-my-god-how-did-he-not-go-flying-down-the-stairs!! Breaking up with the Summer meant we had to find a new, please-be-temporary solution:

It works but it's kind of, um, big.

Then we tried three more gates. Too tall, too flimsy, too little clearance between the gate and the pressure-mount-thingies, too whatever.

See, KidCo, you get us. You get our situation. You get it that not every opening is some perfect runway opening, all straight and leggy. You know that real openings have curves. And banisters. And railings. And moldings. And some other engineering difficulties I can't quite explain. But you know. You don't need me to explain. You make a gate for that.

And I love you for it.

God knows it costs enough.

Kindest Regards, My Gate Hero,

Julie

:: Pontiac Smack Talk ::

Have you seen this yet?



I am a Honda driver, and frankly I don't care about Pontiac at all, but I cannot even begin to explain how much I love this ad. Pontiac BRINGS IT, man, and sticks it right to BMW. There's an accessorized chihuahua, some grey poupon, and a guy with a sweater around his neck. It's freakin' brilliant. HA!

:: Seven Strange Search Terms ::

While I was dying, I got tagged (by happythings, a lovely little blog) for the "seven random things about me" meme. Since I know I have a lot of non-bloggy readers, that basically means that someone picked me to blog about seven things about myself. Like an email forward, I'm supposed to blog about said seven things and then pick seven people to tag with the meme.

But since I can't think of seven things that might interest/shock/surprise you that I am actually willing to share or haven't shared already, I thought I'd go through the old blog-stat archives and find my top seven favorite search terms (the terms people entered into Google or Yahoo or whatever before getting to my blog).

They are, in no particular order and with links to the posts they yielded:

"bar pickup for wife" -- Led this poor lonely googler to this post about watching my husband study for the bar exam. Probably not much help.

"pee coats" -- I've had this one turn up on multiple occasions, always ending up at this post, where I wrote about how it looked like someone had peed on the sleeve of my white winter coat and contemplated buying a pea coat to replace it (linking to several possibilities). I just love it that people who misspell "pee coat" still end up at a relevant post.

"wife kills husband for calling her fat" -- This web search turned up my silly little post on snoring husbands. But while I probably ought to feel bad for the woman (or the man) who searched for this phrase, I just find it hilarious for some reason. The things people Google these days!

(SIDE NOTE: I have a friend who is expecting her second child two weeks before the end of her husband's semester (he's a prof) who recently admitted that she finds herself typing "how to delay labor" into her search bar.  I think that's so funny.)

"beach ball 2007" -- I don't really know what this person was trying to find -- maybe a sorority event or something??? -- but I'm pretty sure it led him or her to this post on being huge right before having Evan. I hope my unwitting searcher at least enjoyed the post.

"where is the jowl of a dog" -- I get jowl-related searches all the time (thinks like "jowl firming" and "why do jowls happen") because of this post.

"ugly snoring husbands" -- I've written about ugly dolls (this post also yields search terms like "ugly knitting" which, frankly, I resent) and about snoring husbands (see above for link) but this search term, which combines keywords from the two posts, might be my favorite search term ever. HA!

"pregnant lady how to bone a baby" -- I got this one today. I don't know what to say. What does this even mean? What post did it lead to? I have no idea. Whatever it means, I think it's probably pretty disturbing. Makes my blog shudder just being selected by search engines for such a lurid phrase.

What strange things have you searched for?

(Oh, and also, I'm not going to tag seven people.  I'm a crazy, crazy rebel.)